Fifty years of ‘Cleopatra’

And with it came the two decades-long roller coaster ride known as Liz & Dick, the rise of the paparazzi, an early example of the “blockbuster” mentality (nine years before The Godfatherand 12 years before Jaws), the ultimate vanity project and one of the first in a long line of flops (or perceived flops) that altered careers and companies. (See: Heaven’s Gate, One from the Heart, Ishtar, Hudson Hawk, Waterworld, etc.) Not to mention the inspiration for one of 2012’s best novels, Jess Walters “Beautiful Ruins,” but I digress.

Truth be told,Cleopatra was the highest grossing film of 1963. It’s just that its $44 million cost (skyrocketing from the original $2 million budget) far outweighed its $26 million box office take. Yes, the biggest movie of the year operated at a loss. With adjustments for inflation, that $44 million would be approximately $334 million today, while the ticket sales would total about $197.5 million. And that’s enough to place it in 15th place on the list of most expensive films ever.

Let’s not forget, too, that the Joseph L. Mankiewicz(All About Eve, Julius Caesar, Guys and Dolls)-directed* historical epic was nominated for nine Oscars and won four. Or that, while it’s far from a good film, it’s not the worst by a long shot. A handful of critics actually liked it, with no less than the eminent Bosley Crowther of the New York Times calling it “one of the great epic films of our day.”

In regards to the paparazzi, they were already coming; the name was coined three years earlier after a character in the 1960 classic, La Dolce Vita, like Cleopatra, shot partially in Rome. Thanks to the excess, glamour and romantic scandals on and off the Cleopatra set, the pesky photogs simply got their biggest opportunities yet.